So why are we doing this?

So Why Are We Doing This?

This is a question that anyone considering planting a church should spend a great deal of time thinking about.

I am not trying to reinvent the wheel with this post. There are a great deal of articles written about reasons to plant a church. I would direct you to Tim Keller's excellent post about reasons why to church plant here as a good place to start.

Why are we planting a church, though? It is one thing to agree with idea of planting a church, but another altogether to actually do it.

The first way that I can answer this is to share with you the process of how we got here.

As stated previously, I have been called to be a pastor for God's people. Now, some pastors are called by God to perform different functions for His people, according to how they are gifted by Him and empowered by His Spirit. In Ephesians 4:11-13, Paul tells us that God has blessed his church with Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to equip His people for the work of ministry, building and strengthening the body of Christ (His people, the "church") until we all attain to the unity of the faith.

Teachers can take on many roles. At Grace, we are blessed with a great teacher named Scott Golike. He is the primary preaching pastor here at Grace, and God is doing great things through his faithful teaching of God's word. Now, Scott and I are great co-workers in the vineyard. He has mentored me and shown me what it really means to shepherd God's people. Through Scott, I can see why God waited so long to fulfill His calling on my life to be a pastor because I was not ready in my late 20's and early 30's. As much as my pride wanted to deny that!

That said, Scott and I are very different. Different upbringing, different backgrounds, different stories of salvation, different communicators, different personalities. I mean, in hindsight, it truly is a testimony of how great God's Spirit is in uniting two very different men together for the shepherding the people of Grace Fellowship!

The problem is, God has called us both to proclaim the Good News about Jesus in the role of a preacher, and as a visionary leader. All of us elders at Grace affirm Scott's calling to lead this ministry here. We all agree that this would be best for Grace moving forward. We are also blessed with another gifted teacher named Kristian. Unfortunately for him, his work is preventing him from preaching more than we think he should. Really, with my calling, there is a redundancy of gifting here.

I have often said that Christians are like manure. Manure is great for causing growth. You have a dead lawn, put manure on it and watch it grow and become alive. Like us Christians. You spread us out and growth happens. You put us into a dead world, and God brings life through our proclamation of the Gospel. But what happens if you don't spread the manure out? The dump truck comes and deposits this big pile of it on your driveway, and you do nothing with it? What do you have on your driveway now? A big pile of.... manure. Not doing what it is designed to do, just being a stinky mess.

To make this analogy really work, I have to admit that I am manure. I have been gifted and wired by God for leading His people by proclaiming His Good News in a public forum. But like manure, someone like me needs to be spread out for those gifts to manifest in the way the God wants, and in the way that is best for the advancement of God's Kingdom.

So the next question was should we plant a church, or go on staff as the preaching pastor at an existing church? I am sure I will touch on this more in later posts, but I can say this much.

I have talked with several godly men who have transitioned into taking over an existing church. I just can't do that. Christians can for sure be very gracious and loving, be we can also be pretty nasty to each other. Especially when someone comes along who is different than the previous leader, or someone who comes in and brings about wholesale changes. Those of you who have been around church ministry for any length of time know how well some people handle change.

We have great dreams of what God can do through the Vine and the Branches, but it is pretty different than most typical evangelical churches. I sense that it would be very difficult to move into an existing work, with all the history, baggage, tradition, etc and bring this new vision. You would spend more than half your time trying to change the mindset and "culture" of the church as you would actually leading people into the mission God has given.

I love the idea of starting from scratch. From the ground up. To hard wire into the DNA of God's church the mission He has called us to. No baggage. No "this is how we have always done it" or "that's not how pastor so-and-so did that" comments. To see people come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord and to build into their discipleship process the mission without the baggage of tradition. How cool is that? How cool is it that God is blessing us with this opportunity?

In looking back over my life, I can see that the times I am most alive in my walk with Jesus is when I am operating in faith that He will provide all my needs. The next post will show how this has played out and hopefully will give you another reason why we have been called to plant the Vine and the Branches in Spokane.